With the recent rise in popularity of wood as a fuel for the heating of homes, there has been an increasing profusion of devices made available for the splitting of logs of wood into more conveniently sized pieces for burning. Among devices of this class are four-bladed, splitting wedge tools such as described in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,601. Since the splitting typically requires both hands, it is desirable that a wood holding device be provided. Some of the wedge tools which have been recently developed include means for holding the log still while it is being split but none of these are efficient splitting tools. Clearly, such a holding device to be useful would be inexpensively manufactured, readily useful with a wide variety of wooden workpieces, substantially fool-proof, and durable in service.